what's cooking? part 5: 2017-2027

Silby I'm gonna do Silestone, glad to hear your folks have been pleased. Actually I'm thinking zinc for the island, but that may be a totally stupid idea i dunno.

i have heard good things abt silestone

i like this topic so here's a little pano of my kitchen (it's open to the dining room which is where i was standing to take this):

https://i.imgur.com/gzKSJz9.jpg

my initial reaction when i saw this kitchen was that the peninsula + open layout creates a dead corner which is clearly visible on the far left. if i did a full remodel (unlikely) i'd consider ditching the peninsula and just extending cabinets/counters further down in a straight line, then adding an island. the peninsula is nice to sit at but still creates wasted space.

other than that i'd replace the counters with granite (prob will do that anyway next year). also to the right of the range is all our trash/recycling...once upon a time there was a steam radiator there until someone realized that having a radiator right next to a stove was extremely dumb. so the radiator is gone but i'd love to custom-build a counter extension with trash under it.

our cabinets are 1940s-era but fine...i don't see much i'm crazy about with newer cabinets that would cause me to replace them.

That's a nice layout! I'm in more of a Euro-sized space, but a prior reno (house is 1916) opened up the kitchen to the dining room--so it feels more spacious but still has some counter/cabinet limitations.

we put in a dark grey quartz silestone and have been happy with it. biggest upgrade in the whole remodel was the big two trash/recycling can pull out drawer. Only option before then was a small bin underneath the sink. there wasn't even floor space for a large bin on the floor in our tiny kitchen space. Could not live without that trash can drawer. I think the newer cabinets are worth it for the hidden hinges, slow close everything, and just maximizing space. For example, the narrow horizontal face below the sink flips down so that you can put the sponges, etc in a couple little baskets there. worst part of kitchen reno is not having a kitchen while it's done.

I have a white caeserstone stone and stainless steel counters. I know caeserstone is supposed to be stain resistant but I find that some red wine does stain it. I'm still a big fan of ikea cabinets. We put some in our first house (a basic lower end white model) and they held up really well for 10 years until we sold the house.

don't think i've ever seen ss counters in a home before. you like? i just got a new apt. that has the exact same kitchen counter tiles as my olde sf apartment of 23 years. hoping that's a good omen. moving in 2 weeks

My first house we got the ss counters made locally. Just double plywood cut to fit and then wrapped at a place down the block. I loved them. It was a smallish kitchen in so it made things brighter, more streamlined. I found it easier to clean than stainless steel appliances (which I don't like, but I somehow end up with them). The apt I am currently in came with stainless steel counters because the guy had just removated. The tap water is pretty minerally and hard here and the air is dry/dusty, so the ss is a bitch to keep looking clean/water spot free.

I really prefer counters to be one color, so I would always go for ss over a granite type of look (which is why I like my apartment that has white caeserstone). I would love to get poured cement counters one day.

our kitchen has stainless steel counter too, as well as Corian. Not a combo I'd have chosen (either on their own would look nicer) but it is practical

Yeah, we had a butchery block wood island with the stainless steel counters in my first place and that looked fine, but mixing it with other things might be weird. I guess it depends on the size of each piece. Right now even the baseboards under the counters are stainless steel and they kind of drive me nuts with how dirty they look sometimes.

This is why I am thinking about zinc countertop on the island and just letting it get thoroughly patinaed.

I think that would look amazing.

yeah, bar in sf, the toronado has zinc counter/serving area and i've always liked the simple utilitarianness. and it seems indestructible.

Made an Italian-themed feast for Father's Day. Before cooking, I whipped up some very strong frozen mango cilantro margaritas. Then I cooked up a few recipes from Lidia's Mastering the Art of Italian Cuisine, which is fast becoming my favorite cookbook. I made pork loin with balsamic onions, asparagus and cheese, and savoy cabbage and potatoes. It was a ton of stuff to juggle, but it was all very delicious. Now my son is whipping up a batch of chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

Have been gaining a lot of confidence in my cooking over the past 6 or so months. I went from dreading it to being excited about throwing together a meal. The process can still be stressful, but it's getting better.

Made a delicious smoky sheet pan chicken with cauliflower tonight. Features thighs and legs tossed in a paprika and vinegar marinade and then baked on sheets with potatoes, cauliflower, onions, and green olives. Had a bit more prep than I was anticipating, but then just gets tossed on the oven til ready, and tasted great!

that's a great feeling, well done

Made a potato galette from Smitten Kitchen’s second cookbook for the second time. Great use of a mandoline and very little work for a pretty impressive potato and cheese pile.

i made awful tacos last week (i know i know idk how u screw up tacos but boy did i) so tonight i waged taco redemption. spicy lime-marinated grilled chicken, homemade pickled vegetables, slaw, the whole nine yards. redeemed!

xp

The chicken I made tonight was also from Smitten Kitchen.

Not cooking again until the daytime temp drops below 80 degrees. So...September.

I don’t like the Smitten cookbooks, even though I think Deb runs a great blog (and I’ve emailed with her). For whatever reason, her voice seem to me to translate into book form.

Anybody doing anything special foodwise on the fourth? I made seitan burgers once a few years ago and it was the best veggie burger recipe I've used so looking forward to making that for friends and relations.

i grilled some chicken thighs and have been eating nothing but tacos for days
that's sort of how i'm going with cooking these days

make food to eat, eat it
i may have lost my desire to learn anything new technique-wise but i haven't lost the urge to experiment with assembly/flavor

Nothing for the 4th I don't think but I'll make potato salad for my July 14th block party, probably early the day before as it will mean the heat and sauna effect of boiling 5 lbs of potatoes. You can trust me, though--that potato salad has NEVER gone uneaten at any party. Clean. People take it home.

On the day of the party I'll cede the field to my bf who will make 3-4 racks of ribs in the oven and destroy my kitchen with home-made barbecue sauce in the process while I drink iced wine and sweet tea outside w my friends & neighbors. Best day of the summer imo.

had some flat rice noodles laying around that i wanted to use up and found this nice simple looking recipe: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/hot-pepper-noodles
have a vegan that i was considering and found a recipe for vegan oyster sauce. man, the dish was sublime on account of this component: https://omnivorescookbook.com/homemade-vegetarian-oyster-sauce/
just sayin'

that sounds worth doing -- how long do you think the sauce will last once it's made? weeks? months?

recipe says it's freezable otherwise 10 days-ish imo. i added the optional miso btw. i also put twice as much in as recipe called for to up the flavor so only have about one more large stir-fry's worth leftover

large = how many servings?

This is very timely. I am embarking on a massive Use It Up project for fridge/freezer/pantry. I have flat rice noodles that need Using Up without purchase of additional stuff that will itself need Using Up!

Perhaps I can enlist this thread in some Use It Up challenges? For example: a quite large bag of (good quality!) dried shiitake mushrooms? I only seem to use four or five at a time. At that rate they will last me like five years and I want to finish them in about 3 months.

make this sauce and give extra to friends or freeze it!

Oh wait I failed to look at the sauce recipe! Even more timely!!!

Update: shiitakes now soaking. Thread delivers!

I doubled the recipe (except for the garlic, as for some reason I only had two lonely cloves on hand) and included the miso. I still need to whip up some five spice powder (using up whole spices! excellent!). Tastes wonderful. Not terribly taxing to whip up, though I wish I'd used my food processor instead of my vitamix as I think the blending part would have gone better. Slicing the shrooms was the most labor intensive part and took maybe two minutes.

I'll do a proper measurement once I cool and store, but I ended up with about five cups of sauce?

Xposts probably have 2/3 cup of this sauce leftover. So not sure how to break that down into servings but reckon that'd sauce 6 or 8 cups of cooked veg? Or it could cover that noodle recipe 2x I reckon

Oh u made a lot more than I did! I tend to eyeball things so just counted out like 8 or so shiitakes when I did it and went from there. I prefer blender. Just threw in the whole cooked shrooms and the rest of the ings and added all the soaking liquid plus some water to get it blendable

I weighed out the shiitakes and it took a good bit of the soaking liquid to keep things loose enough to blend! I'll be using a good 1/4 cup per serving of noodles or stir fry, though. I see using it more like a mushroom pesto than an 1:1 oyster sauce sub.

I did the slicing/browing shiitake step but I'm sure it is none the worse for skipping!

Oh I cooked em just left em whole in cast iron added a load of ginger n garlic then straight into the blender

Baked a tasty frittata this evening with tomatoes, basil, onions, and dollops of ricotta.

Lucky Peach book is a bit frustrating. The pictures are funny, and the intro matter seems good. But the recipes themselves feel oversimplified at times. The feedback loop of finding a recipe that excites you, making it, and loving the results feels unbalanced because the book does a good job getting you excited for recipes that are more like jumping off points to something good. I've had better luck finding a recipe in the book, researching alternatives online, and making a hybrid recipe. In the end, the process feels less simple than using a more prescriptive book with slightly more complex recipes where you consistently love the results.

I can see that. Economy noodles are now a standby but yeah it’s more a riff than a recipe

Was it Jacques Pepin? that says one should only use cooking recipes as guidelines and not to the letter? Because produce and fruit that you select will always have different ripenesses/sugars/starches, everyone has different cooking facilities, nothing can ever be controlled enough to make the perfect recipe. When I make noodles/dumpling dough from scratch, I never measure anymore but instead go by feel.

I’m kinda obsessed with this nyc dish I’ve read about called curry lamb noodles, I think lucky peach has a recipe? (Nb I have never had the dish but it sounds amazing). But I’m always too lazy to make noodles from scratch. I need to get over that.

xp I guess "a riff" feels more like "cooking" and would have been great for me had I acquired an interest in cooking while younger. But, for example, a scallion pancake dipping sauce recommendation of 1:1 soy sauce and dark rice vinegar is such a bad riff for something that can be so much better with just a bit more if you throw away your book's ethos of simplicity.

but I agree that you can't blindly trust a recipe. I definitely had to go way outside of the annoying volumetric measures for dough given in the recipe for said scallion pancakes. But my complaint is more about "this recipe is missing something" that makes cooking it not worthwhile and not just balancing the flavors presented in the recipe.

Oh, the lamb curry noodles is a big thing at Xi'an Famous Foods (used to be a basement stall in Flushing, bourdain visited, now they are a chain). Their noodles are delicious.

I didn't really get into cooking until the last 5 years or so. Mostly because my partner was vegan for so long I was kind of over it and so we made boring stuff (ha!) I also can't really cook meat well because of this.

The key to noodle/dumpling dough, and this may be obvious, but you really need to use warm water. It literally takes me under 4 minutes to make dough and then I let it sit and kneed it more later.

All of our soy type of dipping sauce is the same. 1/2 vinegar (it doesn't matter what kind to us), 1/2 soy sauce (but if the soy sauce is super salty we might do more vinegar), slivers of a clove of garlic, and sometimes a dash of hot chili oil if we have it.

i'm gonna be a little sad to move away from my vegan housemates that have caused me to experiment in that realm more than i otherwise would have, BUT i am pretty chuffed to be able to use fish sauce, shrimp paste, and whatever the heck i want to when cooking.

It literally takes me under 4 minutes to make dough and then I let it sit and kneed it more later.

This made the think (aside from the fact that i'd like to try my hand @ dim sum-type doughs) that: "i have a pasta roller, why don't i use it more?!" the machine does the kneading as dough goes through it ffs making the process so damn simple

and oyster sauce! (I'm sure the mushroom stuff is also good)